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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853862">What lies Beneath the Leaves</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mejasoulfruit/pseuds/Mejasoulfruit'>Mejasoulfruit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Creepypasta - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Creepypasta, Don't @ Me, Just kind of a test post, Murder, Not much of a commitment rn just something I wrote based off a RP i had been in, Violence, also i will die by serial killers being literal ppl bc thats a fact we ignore bc its uncomfy, i could go on a rant but wont, i hope these tags line up right oops idk how a03 works yet, slender mansion setting, unless a character pops up in characters they are mine and ill fight for them lol</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:27:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853862</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mejasoulfruit/pseuds/Mejasoulfruit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Brutus and Cletus are driving back to the Slender House after God knows what. Some discourse happens when Brutus stops by to pick up a book from Kenneth. Gently edited, but still largely raw writing. An argument between two pals about the logic behind sticking around and raising a family.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What lies Beneath the Leaves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Quick Cw - Pregnancy, a bit of a graphic allusion to birth which yeah no that is wild huh. </p><p>I might continue this, might not. If u like it please comment &lt;:^) i thrive off of compliments and encouragement. If you have questions, feel free to ask! I'd love to discussion headcannons and suggestions peacefully, but will not tolerate any level of "THIS!!!! IS HOW THEY SHOULD ACT!!!" I've modded for a creepypasta group or two on Facebook over the years and still do. I've been on both sides of "yes i know the mansion setting is headcanon but the way i believe these characters who've never been written together by their creators should interact is CANON!!!" enough times to know just how deeply bullshit it is and how important it is to just have fun while being respectful lol. (Also the concept that you can eyeball someone and know 100% they're a serial killer is bullshit.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rented Scion rumbled down the highway. It bounced against potholes and crunched against the black pebbles and rocks that skittered out from the weathered pits. It made Cletus sick, rocking around in this lemon while Brutus blared Disturbia like Rhianna died last night when no one was watching.</p><p>He pressed a hand to the side of his temple. His head was pounding, he could practically feel it throbbing under the stone of his palm. He thought about taking Brutus’ advice. Maybe the mask was giving him motion sickness. But, he reasoned his way out of that thought and gave a nauseated sigh. “Ya gotta turn it down,” he bubbled.</p><p>Brutus furrowed his brow and looked over for a second. He reached over and turned the radio down. “What?”</p><p>“I said you gotta turn that down,” Cletus mumbled</p><p>Brutus frowned. He rolled his eyes and turned it back up. Louder than it was before.</p><p>Cletus groaned angrily over the radio. “Oh, come on! I feel like shit.”</p><p>“Sorry, my bad, I didn’t know. You always look like that,” Brutus scoffed.</p><p>Cletus sank down in his seat belt and covered his ears. His stomach flipped over and over, apparently trying to keep up with the beat. “I think I’m goin’ to be sick,” He mumbled.</p><p>“Do it, it’s not my car,” Brutus said, “you got that one wrecked.” Those dark eyes sent Cletus a whipping side eye and Cletus snarled. That was a nasty piece of history that Cletus didn’t care to bring up. But, Brutus must’ve wanted a better serial killer origin story than two dipshit boys stumbling away from a busted Subaru and liked to bring it up.</p><p>Cletus was about to come up with some subpar rebuttal, his mind muddled by motion sickness and his tongue just not being too sharp anyways, but then the car slowed to a stop and Disturbia faded out. Cletus looked up and saw they had pulled into a driveway. Cletus thought they made an odd turn a mile or so back.</p><p>The little cabin wasn’t much. It was one of maybe half-dozen that sat out here in the coverts of the Mockingbird Forest, between the Caster mountain and the Pine river that they used to mark True West. It was Kenneth McCall’s house. A previous member of the house that Cletus heard blew in around the same time Ruth did. Kenneth was kind enough, but he was big, and odd. They all were. Oddness wasn’t something Cletus was used to even after all this time. So, between that and his nausea-warped mind, the house seemed massive and unsettling. The chips of paint missing where the weather had battered the old door became massive eyes, staring at Cletus as he tried to sink under the window.</p><p>“What we doin’ here?” Cletus creaked. He found his sickness wasn’t easing up now that they were still.</p><p>Brutus jerked the key from the ignition. “Kenneth has sumthin’ for me. You’re free to start walkin’ back to the house. I’m drivin’ the car back to the rental place after this,” Brutus said flatly. With a quick click of his belt, he left Cletus in the car before he could ask further questions.</p><p>Cletus didn’t like how seriously he marched up the driveway, so he didn’t stay to find out what was going on. However, he didn’t suspect it was just a matter of picking something up. He stumbled out the other side of the car and took a deep, shaky breath. He took one last look to Brutus, and slunk off to the wild, untamed woods surrounding the small property.</p><p>Brutus plodded up the gravel drive-way. He looked once over his shoulder to see if Cletus had gone and caught him just in time to watch him bumble like a drunk into the woods. The hill was just steep enough that the underlying mud and the already finicky gravel made it slick enough to slide, but not give him the grace of falling right on his ass. Instead, he found himself dancing awkwardly once or twice and swearing at this shaded little mossy place that always seemed to get rain, but was somehow protected enough that the sun never could dry it out.</p><p>Brutus took a peek into Beck’s little sedan. It was an old vehicle. The fabric roof drooped and the dashboard was worn. The kid’s car seat sat in the back, it was shaped like a race car. It was shitty, but it was better than Kenneth’s truck. He looked up. The rust-bitten red beast rested in front of the sedan. Both puttered and groaned when they were put into motion. Both made all of them nervous. He remembered when they bought Kenneth’s truck. It was a lot of luck and chance for something so shitty. Brutus once again found himself wondering, wondering if it was all worth it.</p><p>Brutus walked up onto the cement porch. It was cracked and grooved like the door frame, which always made him wonder. Termites, weather, or big, crazy people? Funny how often it tended to be all three. Like God couldn’t just ease up a little and give them all a break. He knocked. He was usually a big, loud knocker. But, he minded his manners here because he thought he should and knocked gently.</p><p>Brutus saw the curtains shift. A slow, subtle movement. Then, the door opened and Beck was standing there with a nervous smile. The tension was immediate. Brutus didn’t approve of what was going on here -- This always-wet-never-dry abode where the porch was falling apart and the conversations about cars ended in, “well, it gets me places.” He wanted them to go. To leave and never come back, and often he found himself wondering why they didn’t just go. Get a glamour for their son and go. To just leave! Brutus felt himself getting frustrated already.</p><p>Beck stepped aside and Brutus paused to rub the mud off his boots on the welcome mat. It was only about half as worn as anything else. Beck flattened his wings so Brutus could step past him. “Kenneth is in the kitchen,” Beck said softly. Brutus nodded and didn’t look at him.</p><p>“Bruu-tus!” And it repeated. Sounding like “Brewtus! Brewtus!” but there wasn’t a w in his name. It echoed in his ears and Brutus looked down to the little boy with the massive, overgrown wings sitting with his workbook and a big smile. Brutus didn’t like kids, but he gave Greece - as the poor bastard was named - a thin, pressurized smile because he felt he ought to. Brutus remembered that Kenneth almost died when he was born. Brutus thought Kenneth was stupid.</p><p>The seven-year-old boy snatched up the booklet in front of him and splayed it out to Brutus. Clock faces and scrawling handwriting decorated the pages. They meant nothing to Brutus, but the kid seemed very pleased about the whole thing. “I’m learning how to tell clocks!” Greece chirped.</p><p>“Oh… Cool, cool. What time is it now?” Brutus mumbled half-heartedly as he looked into the kitchen doorway. Did they even have an analog clock? Did anybody? Brutus didn’t hear the answer. Beck told Greece to go on and head to his room, though.</p><p>Brutus walked into the kitchen. Kenneth was there, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. The man was watching a pot and waiting for it to boil. He didn’t look up when Brutus entered. The floor creaked when anyone stepped, so Brutus knew Kenneth heard him enter.</p><p>Brutus leaned against another counter. He tapped his fingers over the old pine tops and stared at the floor. It was a 70s-esque ugly pattern of browns, greens, yellows and whites in bigs, smalls and tinys. It reminded him of his church’s kitchen back in Bedford.</p><p>Kenneth, like his family, was one of the oddfolk. A broad term to describe anyone not human. He was a tall, broad-shouldered shiftling man. His ears were just pointed enough to be a problem, his teeth too. But, elf-ears and pointed canines weren’t the worst of his problems. Cosmetics, genetics, they weren’t hard to lie about. His eyes were the most damning, but were probably only a little harder to lie about. They were heavy black in the white and gray in the iris. However, as the name might imply, he could shift. Shift between a collection of forms Kenneth had...collected. Brutus wasn’t sure how it worked, but it meant Kenneth could go to work as some human woman he called Kitty and come back to live his life as Kenneth without problem. Something Beck couldn’t do because Beck was what he claimed to be called a “pseudo-angel.” He was hardly more than a man with big wings stapled on the back, and he couldn’t change that without the help of a glamour.</p><p>When Kenneth looked up, he gave a gentle grin as to end the not-so-subtle competition of who could avoid eye contact the longest like it hadn’t had happened. “Lookin’ pretty grim. It’s just a medical encyclopedia,” Kenneth mumbled. Brutus’s eyes narrowed. Brutus came into this conversation already mad, and he didn’t care if Kenneth took it well. Brutus was angry and frustrated and he thought Beck and Kenneth were both fucking stupid and that God was testing him.</p><p>Those dark eyes scanned Brutus’s face and Kenneth’s lips pursed. “I don’t want you preachin’ at me--” Kenneth started.</p><p>“I’m not! But, God, I think you’re fuckin’ stupid! Why another baby? You nearly fuckin’ kicked it well enough last time,” Brutus snapped. “And, I ain’t a doctor! We can’t get ya a doctor!”</p><p>Brutus had heard the news second-hand through Ruth. It had been just another night in the sunroom sipping a variety of things collected from there and somewhere between here and that way. Family came up, like it always does, and Isiah asked how Kenneth was doing. For some fucking reason, the other proxy looked at these McCalls like they were the pinnicale of what life could be. A ran-down cabin, two shitty cars and an identity made up to get through the day. How was this any different than what they already had?</p><p>"Why does anyone want another baby?” Kenneth mumbled crossly. He sighed and stood up straight, “Okay. Look. I dunno how much Ruth’s told you, but the plan is: We have a friend, uh, lets call her--”</p><p>Suddenly, Beck broke into the kitchen. “Brutus don’t worry, okay? We have a friend, her name is Shelby, she lives down in Texas. She knows all these pe--!”</p><p>Kenneth stared very hard at Beck and he quieted. “Didn’t wanna give out her damn business card,” he grumbled.</p><p>Beck blinked and made a soft ‘oh!’ “Woops, well, uh. Sorry, darling,” He said with a sheepish smile.</p><p>Kenneth sighed and smiled back. Not mad, but humored. “Well, whatever. She’s got no reason to be scared of nothin’ up here.” He motioned Beck to come stand beside him and immediately Beck tucked himself under Kenneth’s arm. Here, Kenneth scolded him for not being just a touch, a single little touch more careful. It was sweet. Kenneth’s pale face shining down onto Beck with his arm wrapped around his shoulder. A tease passing between them as Beck ruffled Kenneth’s dark hair. Brutus was pretty sure Kitty was the reason Greece turned out so blonde.</p><p>It was sweet, but Brutus felt cold. His mind was racing. Kenneth and Beck had wanted to get as far away as they felt they could risk from Slenderman without risking their identities as odd by joining the town. The two had wanted to go further and possibly even leave the Mockingbird Forest for somewhere on the complete other coast, but they were worried about what Slenderman would think. Kenneth and Beck didn’t want to become targets for his wrath by just disappearing entirely, so they didn’t go further. They settled for here. A home where Slender’s territory met the road to Caster. But, the goal had always been to start a family. It was what they had wanted most of all. Something they wouldn’t settle on.</p><p>Back then, Brutus had no connections of his own and he still fucking didn’t. Brutus thought he could do it. Just read a few books, websites, watch some gross video or two. There had been a lot of blood. Brutus felt dizzy. They were going to leave? Beck was under his arm now.</p><p>“Brutus, you need to sit down,” Beck said. Brutus blinked on and on, Beck’s voice sounding far brassier in his ears than he ever remembered it being. “You… Shouldn’t worry about it. You’ve done a lot for us already. I promise we can get this all figured out by ourselves. Kenneth, where did you say his book was?”</p>
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